What is NISO and what does it do?

November 2017

What is NISO?

Founded in 1939, the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is an industry-based, nonprofit, non-governmental association. NISO is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to identify, develop, maintain, and publish voluntary, consensus-based standards for managing information.

What does NISO do?

NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning.

We achieve this mission by focusing on three core areas of activity: Engagement, Interoperability and Education. NISO enables libraries, publishers, and vendors to engage across and solve problems of mutual interest by providing a neutral forum in which they can engage and build consensus. NISO brings together diverse working groups and guide their work as they develop solutions to community concerns. The core problems that we collectively solve focus primarily on technological interoperability and building efficiency among these different organizations that comprise our community. NISO standards focus on content creation and curation, discovery and interchange, analytics and business processes that facilitate content exchange. Critical to the adoption of these technologies is building awareness and support for these solutions through education. NISO’s educational programs include free, written content on the NISO website, webinars, open teleconferences, in-person and virtual conferences.

How do NISO standards add value?

NISO standards promote the flow of content between creator, publisher, distributor and user. NISO standards are directed towards those who publish information and/or provide tools to access, use, or preserve information. The ISBN is one of the NISO standards your company depends on.The procedures NISO uses ensure integrity and guarantee that all stakeholders have a say.

Why do we need standards? Because standards . . .

Make information systems easier to use and less expensive to operate.

Expand markets domestically and abroad for all those who develop and sell information products and services.

Provide stability so all those managing information keep pace with a changing business environment.

Assure your customers and business partners that your products and services meet a necessary level of quality and reliability.

Who uses NISO standards?

Publishers, information aggregators and content providers, libraries and other information providers use NISO standards. All those whose business depends on interoperability with other systems and processes use NISO standards.

How do I join NISO?

Membership in NISO is open to any organization interested in supporting the goals of NISO. We have members who are publishers, libraries, associations, software tool companies, archives, composition vendors and subscription agents, just to name a few. Please visit the JOIN NISO pages for more information.